This month I was busy participating in the 50 Years of Hitchcock class (offered by TCM and Ball State University on Canvas) and binge watching Suits to catch up for season 7. There was a smaller than usual amount of films I wanted to see on TCM this month, which is good because I was able to clear off the dvr for Summer Under the Stars. Below are the films I watched (* means I've seen it before).
Anthony Adverse (1936) - Fredric March & Olivia de Havilland, Claude Rains
Andy Harry's Private Secretary (1941) - Mickey Rooney, Lewis Stone
Tortilla Flat (1942) - Spencer Tracey, John Garfield, Hedy Lamarr, Frank Morgan
Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) - Eddie Bracken, Ella Raines, William Demerest
The Dude Goes West (1948) - Eddie Albert, James Gleason
*The Lady Takes a Sailor (1949) - Jane Wyman & Dennis Morgan, Eve Arden
Clash by Night (1952) - Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe
The Moon is Blue (1953) - William Holden, Maggie, David Niven
The Gun That Won the West (1955) - Dennis Morgan
Our Miss Brooks (1956) - Eve Arden
Teacher's Pet (1957) - Clark Gable & Doris Day, Gig Young
Gigi (1958) - Leslie Caron & Louis Jourdan
The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963) - Glenn Ford & Shirley Jones, Ron Howard, Jerry Van Dyke
*Rocky (1976) - Sylvester Stallone & Talia Shire, Burgess Meredith (one of my top ten favorite movies)
*Down Periscope (1996) - Kelsey Grammar, Bruce Dern
*Star Trek Beyond (2016) - Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho
La La Land (2016) - Emma Stone & Ryan Gosling
Despicable Me 3 (2017) - Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Julie Andrews (I saw it at a drive-in theater, my first!)
Least Favorite: Anthony Adverse (really long and boring) and The Courtship of Eddie's Father (depressing and a little too frank about sex).
Favorite Film of the Month: Our Miss Brooks and Teacher's Pet, both about teachers!
When I first started this blog, my second post was a list of Halloween Films. They were almost all comedies. Since then I have watched some scarier (to me) films that I would like to share with you:
The Leopard Man (1943) - another Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur classic, this one came out the year after the more well-known cult-film Cat People (1942). Set in New Mexico, it features Lewton's signature shadows and sounds, and even the same panther!
That moment when you show up to a party in a killer dress and with a panther
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The Uninvited (1944) - starring Ray Milland and Gail Russell, this haunting film is a must-watch. Milland and his sister (Ruth Hussey) buy a cheap mansion that happens to be haunted. At night they hear a woman moaning but no one can ever be found. Gail Russell is a neighbor who lived there as a child - until her mother fell, or jumped, of the nearby cliff. When Russell comes to visit her new neighbors she falls into a trance.
A séance is always a good idea.
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The Innocents (1961) - a classic starring Deborah Kerr, a governess who is convinced that the two children in her charge are possessed by a couple that died there. I only watched a little bit of it on TCM, but I plan to watch the whole film soon.
Ten people are invited to an isolated island, only to find that an unseen person is killing them one by one. Could one of them be the killer?
That is the premise of one of my favorite mystery stories by the Queen on Crime, the great Agatha Christie. Originally written in 1939, the book, a best seller with over 100 million copies sold, has been made into a movie more times than any of Christie's other novels and has appeared as a television production even more, attesting to the popularity of the story through the decades. You can read more about the book and it's adaptations here.
The Island "prison."
The story was first adapted for the stage, with a alternate ending. This ending is the one mostly used in the film adaptations, the first of which was And Then There were None (1945) starring Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Roland Young, C. Aubrey Smith, Richard Haydn, and Judith Anderson. The young couple and romantic interest in the film is played by Louis Hayward and June Duprez. Like the book, the story takes place on an island (changed to the Alps in the 1965 film titled Ten Little Indians). A group of strangers are invited there by a Mr. U. N. Own (get it - "unknown"), of which none of them has ever actually met. They arrive by boat and are informed that it will be back to pick them up in a few days. The guests are met by two servants, husband and wife, whom they learn have just been hired and also do not know their mysterious host. Everyone is settled in their rooms and have dinner, where they begin to get to know one another. After dinner, a record begins to play. A voice identifies itself as their host and proceeds to tell them why they are there. It seems that everyone has a shady past, whether it was murder or some other sort of crime. The guests are indignant and attempt to tell their stories to clear their names of their supposed crime.
Judith Anderson, the perfect person to put in the middle of a Christie story.
It is then that things begin to get interesting. Prince Nikita Skarloff (Mischa Auer - the protégé from My Man Godfrey) begins drunkenly playing the piano and suddenly collapses, poisoned. Someone notices that one of the Indian statuettes they had only just been admiring on the dining room table has been smashed. They also realize that there is a statue for each of them, totaling ten. Vera Claythorne (Duprez) suddenly recalls a rhyme about "Ten Little Indians," in which the first choked to death. At first everyone thinks there is a killer hiding in the house but suspicion quickly turns to each other as one by one each person meets a terrible fate until finally there are only two people left alive. Which one of them is the killer? Will he or she kill the other and then hang himself, as the poem says? You'll have to watch the movie or read the book to find out!
Here is the rhyme (the word Indians has since been replaced with Soldier Boys):
Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were Nine.
Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were Eight.
Eight little Indian boys traveling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there and then there were Seven.
Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were Six.
Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were Five.
Five little Indian boys going in for law;
One got into Chancery and then there were Four.
Four little Indian boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were Three.
Three little Indian boys walking in the Zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were Two.
Two little Indian boys were out in the sun;
One got all frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Indian boy left all alone;
He went out and hanged himself and then there were none
Released on Halloween of 1945, the film was highly successful. Unfortunately it has fallen into the public domain so copies of the film are extremely poor.
Although I really like this movie, I highly recommend reading the book first, as it is superbly written and with a truly thrilling climax. You can watch the movie in its entirety below:
A silent film. A woman playing the piano. A man cranking the film. An enraptured young woman. Upstairs, a limping young woman, an impending storm, and a closet full of dresses. Behind the dresses? An eye! The limping girl is strangled! The piano continues to play.
So begins The Spiral Staircase (1945) starring Dorothy McGuire, Kent Smith, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, and a few other familiar faces. We know from the moment the credits start that this is going to be a suspenseful film. The eerie music can mean nothing else as the notes slide up and down, immediately inducing a feeling of uneasiness. And when a murder happens before the first line is spoken, one can only wonder, how many others are going to die during its course? But back to the scene of the crime.
Downstairs at the hotel where the murder took place, the moviegoers are sent home and the town doctors come to inspect the body. Through their conversation it is established that the younger doctor, Dr. Parry (Kent Smith) is new to the town and gets on the nerves of old Dr. Harvey, who resents the fact that some of his patients prefer Dr. Parry.
On his way home, Dr. Parry picks up the young woman (Dorothy McGuire) who had been watching the movie. We learn that her name is Helen, she works at the Warren house as a caretaker to old Mrs. Warren (Ethel Barrymore), and today is her day off. We also learn that she is a lost her voice several years ago. Dr. Parry believes that with a specialist's help, she could regain her voice back. It is apparent that Dr. Parry and Helen are attracted to one another.
Before they reach the Warren house, a boy runs up to their buggy and says that his mother is sick. Dr. Parry lets Helen out and leaves with the boy. As Helen walks home through the woods, the tension builds along with the growing storm. A rustling noise turns out to be a rabbit. As she reaches the gate, the storm lets loose. She drops her key in a puddle and we suddenly see that she is not alone. A dark figure in a raincoat is watching her and starts to move towards her just as she finds her key and takes off running to the house.
In the house, Helen heads to the kitchen to dry off before going upstairs to see Mrs. Warren. We learn from the housekeeper (Elsa Lancaster) that this murder was not the first and that the murderer targets only young disabled or disfigured women. The first had a scar on her face, the second was "simple-minded," and now this third girl who had a limp.
While going upstairs, Helen stops to look at her reflection in the mirror, moving her lips as if talking and then putting her hands to her silent throat. The camera backs away from the stairs and again that dark figure is watching her and his eye fills the screen. He sees Helen's reflection without a mouth, as she can't speak. This time he only watches, then disappears into the shadows.
Up in Mrs. Warren's room, the atmosphere seems to be more relaxed. She appears to be asleep but as Helen builds up the fire, she opens her eyes and tell Helen to come to her. It is obvious that the invalid woman is very fond of Helen. Her little smile turns serious and she warns Helen that she isn't safe there and must leave tonight!
Stephen, Dr. Parry, and Albert
Downstairs we meet the rest of the family. There is Professor Albert Warren (George Brent), his secretary Blanche (Rhonda Fleming), and his younger step-brother Stephen. Stephen, who has just returned from a long stay in Paris, is a bit of a womanizer and turns his attentions to Blanche. The constable stops by and warns them to keep an eye on Helen, as they have traced the murderer to their vicinity. Albert tells Helen to stay in the house and trust no one.
Back in Mrs. Warren's room, she has another attack. She expresses displeasure that Stephen has returned, as he always brings trouble with him. She also knows that there has been another murder, even though no one told her. When Dr. Parry arrives, Mrs. Warren tells him that she likes him because he is strong like her husband, not weak like her sons. She also tells him to take away Helen at once. The strain causes another attack. They send a man to town for some more ether, which they use as a stimulant.
Downstairs, Dr. Parry tells Helen to pack her things and he will bring her to his mothers and then to Boston to see about restoring her voice. He also tells her that he has learned how she lost her voice from a visitor from her hometown that was at the home of his last patient. When Helen was a girl, she saw her house burn down with her parents still inside. Dr. Parry believes that if she stops blocking the memory out, her voice will return. After he leaves, Helen has a daydream where she and Dr. Parry are getting married. It is broken when she can't say the words "I do."
While she is packing, Blanche visits her in her room and decides to leave too, as she doesn't like being the cause of the animosity between Albert and Stephen (she had been Albert's girl first). She heads down to the basement to find her suitcase. She is frightened by someone she knows and her smile of relief turns to terror as whoever it was strangles her, her face and the murderer shrouded in darkness.
While all of this is taking place, Mrs. Warren tells Helen of a murder she saw many years ago, on the grounds of this very house. It was a simple-minded girl. A "tree" moved and threw her into the well. Mrs. Warren couldn't find a rope to save her. Then she says something strange: "You were that girl, Helen." Again she warns her to leave, or at least hide under the bed.
Full movie
*THE REST OF THE POST CONTAINS SPOILERS*
Helen then goes downstairs to find Blanche and finds her body. She now knows the murderer is in the house. Suddenly she hears someone behind her. It is Stephen. He tells her to go call Dr. Parry. Helen runs out and locks Stephen in, thinking he is the murderer. She rushes to the phone but when the operator asks for the number she can't say anything. Albert walks in and she writes down what has happened. He starts to take her upstairs to his step-mother's room but stops at the mirror. He reveals that he is the murderer. "There is no room in the whole world for imperfection." He explains his actions as disposing the weak that his father detested. "He would have admired me for what I'm doing."
Helen manages to get away from him and locks herself in Mrs. Warren's room. She frantically begins searching for the gun that is usually on Mrs. Warren's nightstand. Then she sneaks back downstairs to let Stephen out but stops when she sees Albert's shoes at the bottom of the spiral staircase, where he was about to go tend to Stephen. She turns to go back up the stairs and who should be standing there with a gun but Mrs. Warren! Albert comes our of his hiding place and she shoots him multiple times, "ten years too late." Helen, for the first time, screams. She then goes and lets out Stephen, who rushes to his mother, who has now collapsed. "Forgive me, Stephen, I thought it was you. He always waited until you came home, so I thought it was you." Stephen again sends Helen upstairs to call Dr. Parry. This time she is able to speak.
1. What was the first Hitchcock film you ever watched? I don't remember but it was probably Rear Window that I watched first in one sitting.
2. What’s your favorite Hitchcock film? There's several that are up there: Rebecca, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious and The Trouble with Harry but it was Strangers on a Train that started my interest in Hitchcock. I had only seen his more famous films before (Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North By Northwest) none of which I particularly like. Psycho and The Birds are favorites too but not really ones I would want to watch a lot.
3. What’s your least favorite Hitchcock film? Vertigo. I've never been a huge fan of James Stewart, though I like several of his movies, and I don't really like Kim Novak.
4. What’s your favorite Hitchcock cameo? Either Lifeboat or Strangers on a Train.
All of Hitchcock's cameos
5. Who’s your favorite Hitchcock villain? Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt.
6. Hero? Rod Taylor in The Birds.
7. Heroine? Ingrid Bergman in Notorious.
8. What’s your favorite Hitchcock quote? Edmund Gwenn in The Trouble with Harry [after Dr. Greenbow trips over the body]: Couldn't have had more people here if I'd sold tickets.
9. And, finally, how many Hitchcock films have you watched? 21
This post has been two years in coming. I first discovered Simone Simon shortly after creating this blog. The film was Cat People (1942) and there was so much I wanted to say about the movie and her performance in it but couldn't find the perfect words to describe it. The post would have just been me gushing about her accompanied by at least 30 photos of her adorable and bewitching face.
When the Classic Movie History Project Blogathon was announced with a category for foreign stars, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to learn more about this little known star that captured my attention so quickly.
Simone Simon was born in France on April 23, 1910 of a French father and an Italian mother. Raised in Marseilles and Madagascar, she moved to Paris when she was 19 and worked as a model, cabaret dancer, and briefly a fashion designer. She got her start in motion pictures there in 1931 when she appeared as a singer in the film Le Chanteur Inconnu. Then, in 1934, she appeared as a " a mysterious child of nature called Puck, who entrances Jean-Pierre Aumont, the swimming instructor at a mountain lake resort," in the film Lac Aux Dames. She was noticed by 20th Century Fox and made her English film debut in Girls' Dormitory (1936). Over the next two years, she made four more films: Ladies in Love with Janet Gaynor, Loretta Young, and Constance Bennett (it can be viewed on TCM on the 12th), Seventh Heaven (1937) with James Stewart - a remake of a Gaynor film, Love and Hisses (1937), and Josette (1938) with Don Ameche.
Tired of the silly fluff she was being given, and her low salary, Simon returned to France and 10 days later started filming on La Bête Humaine (1938). The producers had a different actress in mind for the role of femme fatale Severine, but the director, Jean Renoir, insisted on Simon.
I claimed, and still claim, that vamps have to be played by women with innocent faces. Women with innocent faces are the most dangerous ones! Also, you don't expect it, so there is an element of surprise! I insisted we use Simone Simon, which we did, and I don't think we were sorry.
Simon made one other film in France and then, because of the war, returned to Hollywood, this time to RKO, where she appeared in The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) - also known as All That Money Can Buy.
Her next film paired her with the master of shadows, Val Lewton, in the cult classic Cat People (1942). Simon plays Irena, a fashion sketch artist who believes that the people of her Serbian ancestors village have a curse on them that if aroused sexually they will turn into a panther. This tale doesn't stop the handsome Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) from marrying her. He understands she is fearful of intimacy and lets her take her time before consummating their marriage. When she can't seem to get past her superstition, he enlists the aid of a psychiatrist, Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway). He also spends more and more time at the office with his pretty co-worker, Alice Moore (Jane Randolph). As time goes on, Irena becomes jealous of Alice and Dr. Judd tries to make a pass at his pretty patient.
With it's spectacular use of shadows and sounds to arouse terror in its audience, rather than showing that which is terrifying, the film remains Simon's best known film. Just watch this pool scene with actress Jane Randolph. It's terrifying without actually showing anything:
Here is what I wrote the day I watched it for the first time (8/12/14):
I just watched Cat People (1942) starring Simone Simon and its sequel, Curse of the Cat People (1944). First off, I really liked the first one. It was unusual and different from what I normally watch. I saw this movie listed in a film history book and its description intrigued me so I watched the trailers, which looked interesting, and then checked the film out from my library.
I think Simone Simon is so cute! I love her hair in the movie and she really does have a "cat" face. Not an evil cat but a cute cat. I liked her accent too.
Some screenshots and a gif:
This is NOT a look you want to see...
Trivia:
Because of the small budget (only $150,000), sets from Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons were used.
The entire film was shot in 18 days. The crew worked in shifts around the clock.
Was Lewton's directorial debut. He went on to make several more successful low-budget horror films for RKO.
It is included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" list.
Based on the success of the film, a sequel titled Curse of the Cat People (1944) was made. It focused on the friendship of Oliver and Alice's daughter with the ghost of Irena. The title is misleading, as it's really just about a lonely little girl.
Even with the success of Cat People, Simon never achieved critical acclaim in Hollywood. She made three other films at RKO - Tahiti Honey (1943), Johnny Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1944), and Mademoiselle Fifi (1944) - before returning to Europe. She appeared in only ten more films, taking a break from 1956 to 1973, when she made one more film. After that she disappeared from the public eye, refusing to give any interviews as she was now a "very old woman" and didn't want to appear on camera.
Her personal life is clouded in mystery and myths. Her maid, who was caught stealing from Simon, spread around an untrue story that she gave men to whom she was attracted a gold key to her boudoir. She also, according to IMDb, had an "affair with a famous WWII spy, Dusko Popov, who was Yugoslavian and thought by the Germans to be a spy for them but in fact was a spy for the British. Popov was a very successful double agent and a well-known ladies man, and during WWII was also acquainted with another spy, Ian Fleming, who later used Popov as the basis for James Bond." Simon never married and died of natural causes at the age of 94 in her Paris apartment. She was buried at the Cemetery, Chateau-Gombert in the Cote d'Azur region of France.
I've been a lover of mysteries for a very long time, starting with the Nancy Drew books. So it's only natural that I have a fondness for mystery and suspense in movies!
10. 36 Hours (1964) - James Garner & Eva Marie Saint, Rod Taylor
Honorable Mentions: The Kennel Murder Case (1933), Fast and Loose (1939), Fast and Furious (1939), and The Dark Mirror (1946).
Tomorrow I will start my Top Ten Actors and Actresses Film Lists. I will be covering actors that I have seen a great many films of, including John Wayne, Cary Grant, William Powell, Dennis Morgan, Bob Hope, Tony Curtis & Janet Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, and Bette Davis. Normally I would include Myrna Loy but the majority of films I would pick would be the same as those on William Powell's list. I also love Carole Lombard, Judy Garland, and Lauren Bacall but I either haven't seen enough films or I don't LOVE ten of their films.
